MONTREAL - Three years ago, I sat down to lunch with Sinclair Philip, owner of Vancouver Island's famed hotel/restaurant Sooke Harbour House. Arguably Canada's original locavore, Philip has long been committed to using ingredients grown a maximum of two kilometres from his kitchen door, which means that no lemon, no chocolate and no raw milk Camembert from Normandy is seen at Sooke. When deciding to meet, he let me choose the restaurant. I selected Milos, one of the city's only top restaurants open for lunch.

Before even tasting the food, Mr. Canadian Ingredients told me he disapproved of my choice. Why, he asked, would I champion a restaurant where most everything, from the shrimp to the honey, was imported directly from Greece? Taken aback by his disdain, I came to the swift conclusion that in Philip's world, the best restaurants should be committed to serving only local ingredients. So much for culinary tourism!

Fortunately, when the food arrived he changed his tone, for there was no denying most everything was beyond reproach. We left the table happy, yet his comments lingered in my subconscious, and looking back they were a harbinger of the biggest trend on the restaurant scene right now. With the decade's tides shifting from eating exotic to eating organic to eating local, I thought it was time to give Montreal's best Greek restaurant - renowned for its imported fish and Greek foodstuffs - a fresh look.

When I last reviewed Milos five years ago, I savoured delicacies sourced by owner Costas Spiliadis like fresh shrimp and langoustines from Chalkidiki, sea-salt-baked red mullets from a small fishing village outside Thessaloniki near Mount Athos, and kakavia fish soup topped with croutons made with bread flown in from Crete. For dessert, there was halva, quince paste, and a choice of sheep's-milk cheeses served with hazelnut-stuffed figs drizzled with thyme-blossom honey from Kythira. We drank Greek bottled water (Ioli), and gorgeous Greek white wines privately imported by Spiliadis's son George, who also oversees management of the Montreal restaurant.

This was a time when Le Petit Milos, Spiliadis's specialty food shop a few doors north on Park Ave., was supplying the restaurant with a plethora of imported foodstuffs. But much has happened since then. Le Petit Milos is no longer, and four years ago, Spiliadis opened a successful third Milos in Athens. His second, Estiatorio Milos, is still taking Manhattan by storm, and there has been talk of the brand expanding farther.

Even Milos Montreal - the mother house - feels quite different. The fish arrive from Athens, Portugal, New York and Nova Scotia, but take a closer look and you'll find an increasing number of local ingredients. Yet considering Spiliadis's mission for Greek cuisine to claim its place next to the other greats of the world, it would be wrong for him to follow this local food trend too closely. Part of the fun of a night at Milos is tasting all those special ingredients. But there's no denying there's a shift going on here these days.

Try this on for size: The latest chef is ... Italian!

Franca Mazza, she of catering fame and the Mazza family that put the Little Italy landmark Il Mulino on the map, is now working her Mediterranean magic at Milos. Not that there was a lot to be improved on, but look carefully and you'll see changes - a definite feminine touch to the food - that have lightened and prettied-up cuisine that could have risked looking dated.

There's also a new tasting menu. A tasting menu at Milos? Yes, though unless you're a first-time diner here looking for a few "best of" nibbles from the à la carte selections, I wouldn't bother. One of the best things about Milos is the generous servings. Pared down, they lose their impact. Still, when I sampled the tasting plates of octopus salad, fried calamari, crab cakes, grilled mushrooms and peppers and grilled milokopi alabaster-fleshed fish on a recent visit, my only complaint was one poorly deveined shrimp. Everything else was superb. By the time we had devoured four courses and were slicing through an especially flaky baklava, we were bursting at the seams.

Many Milos detractors claim the restaurant is too pricey. Sure, fresh fish here can set you back $45 a plate, but that's what you'd pay for a rib steak in a good steakhouse, right? But I'll bet that steakhouse isn't offering a lunch deal like Milos's: three courses for a ridiculously reasonable $20.08. Last month the lunch special began with a summery salad consisting of sheep's-milk feta and watermelon cubes enhanced with olive oil, pepper and strips of mint. Following that came a meaty, rich and lush filet of Irish organic salmon, and for dessert I opted for a simple slice of almond and pear tart. Who could ask for anything more?

Yet I did return for more a few weeks later. As much as I enjoyed the minimalist tasting menu at my first visit and that perfect lunch after that, I never quite felt the jolt of excess - those heaping vegetable plates, those hulking lobsters, those fish-for-sharing platters and those elaborate dessert plates - that pushed this restaurant into four-star territory five years ago. This third dinner would have to be a feast.

I began with a bottle of Ktima Gerovassiliou 2006, a gorgeous white wine made with a mixture of asyrtiko and malagousia grapes whose fruity, crisp flavour works so brilliantly with the native cuisine. Next, the Milos special: a heaping stack of fried zucchini and eggplant slices surrounded by squares of fried saganaki cheese and filled with a tunnel of tzatziki. Grease-free and sliced whisper-thin, these simple vegetables are so utterly delicious that I think all Montreal foodies should chow down on this appetizer at least once in their lives.

I also relished the full portion of octopus salad. Unlike the traditional version of this salad, served with parsley, capers and sliced red onions, these charcoal-caramelized octopus chunks were paired with fresh fava beans. It's just that kind of slight break with tradition here that keeps dishes like these exciting.

While perusing the fish display for my main course, my waiter pointed to a gorgeous sea bream large enough for two, wedged between a St. Peter's fish and a Mediterranean sea bass, with my name on it. Glad he did! Firm-fleshed, moist, melting and flavourful, this fish was so impressive on its own that the lemon wedges served alongside were completely unnecessary.

I also wolfed down the side of vegetables - a trio consisting of new potatoes tossed in herbs, steamed "vlita" greens, and thick slices of the season's first zucchini straight from the market. It ranks as my best plate of vegetables this summer.

Instead of the usual honey-topped yogourt or fruit platter for dessert, we enjoyed a bowl of white nectarines and Quebec strawberries tossed with mint and Greek liqueur, followed by a round of fresh goat's-milk cheese. Spiliadis came by to say he had recently discovered this fluffy and tangy cheese at the Chèvrerie du Buckland stand at the Jean Talon Market, in front of Le Havre aux Glaces, where he purchases many of his sorbets. He also showed me some impressive purslane he had picked up at the Birri stand, one of his market favourites. Interesting to note that even with an international restaurant empire in the works, Spiliadis still has time to scour our markets for the best local ingredients.

With this marvellous intertwining of local and imported foodstuffs, options for both flush and budget-conscious diners, tasting plates or jumbo portions, and a touch of feminine sophistication from Mazza, Milos has scaled yet another peak.

To end: a story. While watching the waiter scoop the cheeks off our crisp-skinned bream, I looked up to my dining companion and said, "Imagine, just last week this fish was swimming in the Mediterranean."

"Last week?" my waiter said, looking up with a smile. "Try yesterday. This is Milos, after all."

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